Mailbag for April 2, 2024
A Swiftie glitch (?), KP’s PR lessons, the binge business of streaming, celebrities calling paps, a bit about trailers, and the logistics of Lainey's styling
Dear Squawkers,
As mentioned last week, we’re just changing up the schedule for this week with the mailbag coming out today instead of last Friday because it was COWBOY CARTER Day. Just a heads-up then that after today’s mailbag, our next mailbag will publish on Friday, 12 April, and Jacek has posted the new call-out for questions in the chat, so please send in your submissions.
Just as I sat down to write this mailbag on Monday afternoon, Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS dropped new images of its latest celebrity model: Sabrina Carpenter.
And immediately there was chatter online because Sabrina is closely connected to Taylor Swift – a personal friend, and she’s opened for her on The Eras tour. Taylor, of course, doesn’t fuck with Kim, so there are people out there wondering if this is some kind of betrayal, or a “glitch in the Swiftie universe”.
But does it really work like that? Lana Del Rey has modelled for SKIMS. And Taylor has a number of other friends who cross-over with the Kardashian-Jenners, so I really don’t think this is a thing. Or, rather, I don’t think this is a thing the way social media thinks it’s a thing.
Because why would Taylor care about this? I’m not saying Taylor is magnanimous, what I’m saying is that we have too narrow a definition of petty. Like if I’m Taylor in our year of Beyoncé 2024, I’m actually kinda smug that SKIMS is featuring Sabrina. After all, Taylor featured Sabrina FIRST. Sabrina, no doubt, is talented, a rising star. But let’s not pretend that opening for Taylor wasn’t a major boost to her profile – a profile that Kim is now capitalising on. That’s what Taylor can hold over Kim, and that’s also why I find it so frustrating sometimes, how the kids on TikTok are responding to gossip. Because, frankly, they lack an understanding of all the different ways celebrity egos can be flattered and bolstered and how many different versions of petty can exist, and what they look like. Range, people, range! Ego and petty are cornerstones of celebrity gossip. Please respect the range!
We’ll come back to Taylor soon. Let’s get this mailbag going.
Question from Lil: Question about KP’s PR - when Kate was diagnosed with cancer (all the love to her as she fights this & fuck cancer), what would have been the best plan from a PR perspective? Like something that would have given Kate and Willie time to process and talk to their kids before making a public announcement? I agree that her health should be her business however the job she’s chosen is extremely public facing. There’s also those a-hole courtiers to consider. I’m back to wondering why they don’t have top tier PR people who can handle situations like this.
Lainey’s Answer:
In fairness to Kensington Palace, I don’t know that it’s fair to strategise a communications plan in hindsight because they were obviously dealing with some shit in real time. Did their comms team do a shitty job in real time? Yes. What could they have differently in real time? I’ve already shared my thoughts on this, mostly about the photos, and THAT photo in particular, and the apology that followed.
Rather than talk about what they could have done better knowing what we know now, can we talk about what they can do going forward? As in, what changes could they make to their comms processes with the learnings, tough learnings, that their communications officers have just experienced?
A few weeks ago, on the Sydney Sweeney episode of Saturday Night Live, she and Chloe Fineman played two teenagers assisting the police department and the whole joke was that they were able to solve cold cases within seconds by just doing social media CSI. The reason I bring this up is because even though I just, a few paragraphs ago, up above, talked about the gossip shortcomings of social media – and I stand by it! – I still respect the fuck out of their forensics. They can find ANYTHING. The analysis that follows about what they find needs some work, but the finding of it is … well… it’s terrifyingly proficient. And if you don’t respect it, you get into trouble.
The British royal apparatus did not respect it. They underestimated social media users – and look what happened. So the takeaway here, if I’m them, is to reconsider their comms processes with that in mind. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that they should respond to every social media situation. It just means that they need a better understanding of how social media works, just in general. All corporations should. Like after all these years of Kardashians fucking around with their photos, and being called out on it two seconds later, literally, how is it that the royals wouldn’t know that netizens would be able to clock that shit at the speed of light?
It's ignorance of modern media but also a legacy of arrogance that assumes that whatever they release is so precious that no one would dare question it – which may have been the case decades ago but no longer applies in these times. And that, perhaps, is the biggest challenge where the royal institution’s communication is concerned: it’s royal communications culture and there is no one practical suggestion that can be made unless there is a material cultural overhaul.
Question from Emily G.: I just finished 3 Body Problem on Netflix and I’m really surprised that they released all the episodes at once. I’m wondering what the strategy might be in terms of holding back episodes vs. making them available to stream all at once? Does anyone at Lainey Gossip have any insight why Netflix would slow-release eps of reality shows (Love Is Blind, Physical 100), but not a prestige sci-fi drama by the Game of Thrones bros? It just seems like on other streamers, these prestige shows are a way to get people to subscribe and keep them subscribed. But dumping the eps all at once doesn’t encourage longer subscription periods…right? And it means the conversation in the media around the show dies down quicker…also right?
Sarah’s answer:
Netflix is in the binge business. At this point, we have enough data to say bingeing is BAD for series. It is unquestionably better to do weekly drops of episodes just like classic TV, in order to build hype and word of mouth over time. Bingeing leads to a two-fold phenomenon: 1) series fade faster from the zeitgeist when every episode is dropped at once, and 2) binge series fade faster season-over-season, too. No matter how big a show debuts, it is often out of the Netflix Top 10 within a couple weeks, maybe three on the outside. And then no matter how popular a show is to begin with, they fade rapidly over successive seasons. That second one, I have yet to hear a compelling reason for, except the conspiracy theory that Netflix does it on purpose so they can cancel shows after 2-4 seasons so they don’t have to renegotiate contracts and pay people more. Absent better data, I’ll believe that.
I think Netflix is willing to go weekly with their reality programming because reality is a different beast than scripted series. People consume and engage with it in different ways, and they recognize that and are trying to make that work within their model. But as far as scripted series go, no matter what the data says, they will not give up on the binge model. Their goal is to have so much new stuff spraying out of the content firehose at all times that as soon as you finish one binge, you’re onto the next. Other platforms will slow-roll series either because they’re pacing with linear TV distribution, such as Hulu streaming new episodes of network shows like Abbott Elementary and The Bear one day after they premiere on regular TV, or because they just do not have enough stuff and weekly drops stretches their library further.
But Netflix will never give up on the firehose model. They invented it! Giving into the (copious) data that shows bingeing is bad for longevity means admitting their model is fundamentally flawed. (Newsflash: their model is fundamentally flawed.) They won’t do that. The most they’re willing to give, so far, is weekly reality episodes, and splitting their top-tier series into “volumes”, such as giving us Bridgerton season 3 in two “volumes” this summer or splitting the previous season of Stranger Things in two. That, at least, allows their biggest titles to dominate over a couple months, rather than a couple weeks.
Bingeing probably doesn’t encourage retaining streaming services, but again, what Netflix is counting on is having so much stuff you keep their service because there’s always something new coming out to consume. Besides, the opposite side of this coin is how I often engage with series that do weekly drops—I wait for the series/season to complete, subscribe to that platform for one month, then binge and cancel. This is how I watched Poker Face on Peacock. Keeping every subscription every month is expensive, some of these services I am rolling on and off their payment plans a few times a year to catch up.
Because while bingeing is bad for shows, it’s convenient for the audience. I do not have time to watch TV shows on someone else’s schedule. It fits into MY schedule, or I just do not watch it, and I think this is how a lot of people operate, too. It’s a side effect of too much TV. I can’t keep up with everything anyway, I might as well enjoy what I can, when I can, and let go of the rest. Forcing me into a weekly schedule just ensures I fall behind on your show (it’s a huge reason I’ve never been as big into TV as movies, TV requires time I simply do not have). Even back in the DVR days I had this problem, I would routinely have dozens of episodes of a single series to catch up on at any given time. I’m not good at watching TV, and bingeing makes it easier.
Which is why Netflix won’t give up on it. They’re counting on people like me eventually reaching a critical mass and tipping the data in the other direction. They’re betting that one day, bingeing IS good for TV, because it’s the only way people will watch anything. Sounds a little dystopian, but I am personally not helping the situation. I am part of the problem!
Lainey’s Answer:
Just a quick note because you mentioned Physical 100, which comes out of Korea. Most series that Netflix airs out of Korea, and also many Chinese series, that are airing concurrently in Korea, both scripted and unscripted, are slow-rolled one or two episodes at a time, because that’s how they air over there. Netflix licences these shows but they can’t control the broadcast schedule. If the Physical 100 Korean broadcaster, which produces the show, is releasing only two episodes a week, Netflix must follow the same schedule.
The most prominent exception to this, of course, is Squid Game. And the reason Netflix was able to drop all first season episodes of Squid Game at once is because Netflix ordered it to series – they’re not licencing it from a Korean broadcaster, they are the main broadcaster, so they can dictate the rollout.
Two questions from Hanna (presuming it’s the same Hanna):
Leonardo engaged? Called backgrid to be around 😅 https://pagesix.com/2024/03/27/entertainment/leonardo-dicaprio-vittoria-ceretti-spark-engagement-rumors/
And…
Could you open a bit this what appears to be staging pictures. Although I think you have discussed this earlier maybe? So TNT were at Bahamas and they were papped via backgrid (i think that is the celebs back and call agency) last thursday. The pictures were published on monday - so it was delayed. I think it was similar situation back to the 2022 with Joe. Would they arrange that themselves? And what there is to gain other than make the relationship seem to be PR 👀
Lainey’s Answer:
There are celebrities who call the paparazzi on themselves, that’s true. But now it’s gotten to the point where everyone assumes that every paparazzi photo is a setup… which actually isn’t true. Leonardo DiCaprio did not call the paps on himself and Vittoria Ceretti last week, when she was wearing a ring, and everyone decided to bad-gossip whether or not they were engaged. They were photographed at Yuca’s in LA. Celebrities have been going there for years. Maybe not in the same numbers as, say, Giorgio Baldi, Rihanna’s favourite spot, but Yuca’s is popular. And Leo, in particular, is a semi-regular customer.
As for that ring, you’ll note I didn’t cover it on LaineyGossip because this happens every time Leo has a bona fide and since he’s been bona fiding under-25 year old models for almost 30 years now, I’m surprised that people keep falling for this shit. But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because of how gossip reflects back to us what we expect or hope for.
And in this case, it’s that trope of the playboy who eventually settles down; that somewhere out there, there’s The One who’s waiting for him to find her. Is it women who perpetuate this … eternal hope? Does it give women comfort somehow? The comfort in believing that every playboy, fuckboy, whatever, will inevitably be “cured”? Have you ever been the girl clinging to that dream that you might be The One? Do you know a girl who’s held onto that dream that she might be The One? There is, I’m sure, an exception or two out there and she ended up being The One. But for every The One, there are a thousand broken hearts and spirits, and so much regret about all that time lost, all that energy wasted. Still, it’s a devastatingly enduring fantasy, and I’m not sure we’re anywhere near walking away from it.
As for TNT in the Bahamas and those pap shots – there was nothing to be gained as far as I’m concerned from them calling the paps on themselves, which is why I don’t think they did. It’s not like there’s any shortage of opportunity for these two to put their love on blast, they don’t have to go to the Caribbean to make it happen. They fucking went to Nobu Malibu as soon as they came back, not exactly the most discreet of locations.
Those holiday photos weren’t delayed because TNT asked them to delay it. They were delayed because the agency knew they were sitting on exclusives and waited until TNT had left so as not to alert any other photographers and blow up their spot.
Nobody who is reasonable is out here doubting that TNT are real. They don’t need to prove anything. Those Rhode Island photos with Tom Hiddleston back in the day, though? A totally different story.
Question from Kathryn DeVinney: Ok I know everyone wants to talk about the royals (rightly so) but I just read @Sarah's post about The Fall Guy and Monkey Man. Those trailers are just SO GOOD. My question is: tell me everything I need to know about trailers! Who makes them? Who has say in them? What is your favorite shitty trailer for an awesome movie (ahem Road House) or amazing trailer that hid a shitty movie? What's your favorite trailer, period?
Sarah’s answer:
Trailer editing used to be an art form and people could have long and very lucrative careers at the top of that industry—Cameron Diaz’s character in The Holiday paid for that amazing house as a trailer editor—but over the last 20 years or so, as with many things, the art has been lost in the name of commerce. There are still specialists, Trailer Park is probably the best-known film marketing firm that specializes in trailer editing, but especially for studios/large networks/streamers, trailer editing is often done by marketing flaks who see it as a stepping stone to “something better”. Trailer editing used to BE the better!
It makes me mad, because cutting a good trailer IS an art unto itself, just like good design is an art unto itself for a book cover. That’s why so many trailers are “bad” now, in which “bad” usually means “gives too much away”. It’s because the trailer isn’t being considered as a piece of filmmaking on its own, it’s seen by marketing people as a metric and nothing more. In worst case scenarios, suits at the studios are planning trailer edits before the filmmaker has even started principal photography, meaning their schedule is dictated by what the studio wants in the trailer (Marvel is especially bad about this).
As for favorite trailers, I honestly don’t remember bad trailers for good movies very well, I tend to remember it more when an amazing trailer leads to a total letdown in cinemas. Like Man of Steel had an AMAZING trailer, and that movie is divisive, to put it mildly. Similarly, no matter how bad the new new Star Wars movies/TV shows have gotten, the trailers are almost always good. In fact, the trailer for The Phantom Menace was INCREDIBLE, you truly had to be there to see it in theaters in 1998 (I went to see Meet Joe Black in theaters just for this trailer).
The absolute crushing disappointment of that movie was in large part due to how good the marketing runup was. Like, imagine after all that A+ hype, if Dune 2 sucked. People were CRYING after The Phantom Menace ended. I remember one guy went out and bought a ticket to the next showing, convinced it could not have been as bad as what we just witnessed. Also, the trailer for Cloverfield, it’s not so much that Cloverfield is bad, it’s that maybe Cloverfield only needed to be these two minutes.
There’s only one real rule when it comes to trailers, though—don’t lie to the audience. Trailer editors, whether a dedicated professional or a studio dogsbody, have access to everything committed to film for a project, which is why trailers often have scenes not included in the final film. Often, they’re seeing the film before it’s even done, especially for big movies that have long-lead marketing efforts. That means they can be the first people to detect when a movie might be rotten, so they’re working hard to cover that up. And sometimes, that leads to misleading trailers, such as the famously, WILDLY misleading trailer for Throw Momma from the Train, which makes it look like a slapstick starring a couple of funny guys, and not the homage to Hitchcock that it actually is. Also, there was that totally insane lawsuit last decade about Drive, because a lady was mad the movie wasn’t more like The Fast & The Furious. Let’s be clear—Drive has a good trailer for a good movie. But you can’t make the audience feel tricked, or they get MAD. Sometimes, even lawsuit mad.
Question from Julie via email:
Fashion/Styling question - Lainey has mentioned her stylist a few times:
How does styling work for Lainey - both for events (including the Oscars!) and for the show?
- Are outfits for a week all chosen a week (more?) in advance? (According to guest/event - as Lainey mentioned etc.)
- With hair and make-up decided at the same time?
- Are they borrowed from brands (similar to celebs) and then returned?
- Does she try to keep it to Canadian designers (or is that a consideration)?
- For the Oscars, did Lainey consider a variety - or was the couture dress the one?
Lainey’s Answer:
Etalk’s stylist is Simone Faloona, she’s amazing and we’ve collaborated on some of my favourite looks.
Styling for events that I cover for Etalk, including the Oscars, is with Simone, and requires signoff from Etalk executive producers. Sometimes, for photo shoots with a magazine, I’ve worked with other stylists as assigned by the publication. When I have a choice, though, I’ll always work with someone I already have a relationship with.
Apart from the Oscars, for regular work weeks at Etalk, we generally do a fitting once a week. Simone pulls from a variety of local stores and online retailers (mostly borrowed), and she’ll bring a rack over to my office on Mondays with my schedule. She sometimes knows my schedule better than I do, so she’ll be like, you have four junkets this week, three of them virtual, and you’re shooting the show every day, which means you need nine outfits. Show outfits, since Etalk is on at 7pm, are typically what I would wear to a cocktail party but my personal style. Virtual junket interviews are outfits from the waist up. In-person junket interviews can be more casual, jeans are acceptable, but it still has to be a cool fit.
Simone and I will loosely assign specific outfits for either junkets or show, but depending on how I feel on the day, I might switch it up. Like if I walk into work bloated one day, I might not feel like the suit with the high waist, and I’ll opt for the baby doll dress instead.
I know a lot of people who decide on their hair and makeup according to the clothes. I personally don’t work like that. For me, hair always comes first. My hair is my source code, and I start the day with how I want to wear my hair and more often than not I work the outfit and the makeup around the hair which, yes, sometimes means that whatever fit Simone and I decided a few days ago has to change to accommodate my hair.
For the Oscars, though, the dress or suit or whatever always takes the lead. This year I wore two looks at the Oscars and the backstory to that is for a variety of reasons, mostly scheduling, we couldn’t get started on planning my outfit until we were maybe just seven weeks out… which didn’t leave a lot of time for my original idea, a custom dress. Celebrities and their stylists and designers can take right up to the day before the Oscars for alterations, etc. That’s not how it works for us. My dress has to be packed up and ready to go five days before the Oscars because that’s when I leave Toronto for LA. But also, since we’re on the road, we do hair and makeup trials ten days before the Oscars so that the artists can figure out what they need to bring/buy for the trip. Working backwards, then, given the late start, we only really had three, max four, weeks to get a dress together for me, which was not enough time for the designer to make a couture dress from scratch.
So we ended up reaching out to Jordan Stewart at RVNG Couture and she had been in France showing her collection at Paris Fashion Week. She invited us to her studio about two and a half weeks before the Oscars, and she presented us with about a dozen options. I tried on only one – the minute I laid eyes on her I knew. Although it needed some alterations around the shoulder, and I asked her to shorten the front to give it a sort of mullet effect and show the shoes. Because the dress reminded me of Louis XIV and Versailles and the amazing over-the-top opulence of the fashion of that era. I posted photos of the end result on Instagram …
…but here’s a photo and video from the fitting (designer Jordan Stewart is pictured with me).
The second dress I wore for this year’s Oscars was for our live aftershow. That dress was actually one of my options for the Fete Chinoise Lunar New Year gala that I hosted in February. Simone pulled it and I ended up wearing something else for that event, but the dress was so good that I asked her to hold onto it, and when our network decided that Etalk would be doing an Oscars aftershow, Simone and I knew immediately that she was the one. By the way, it’s still available, in limited sizes, at Revolve.
Thanks for your questions! And please do submit more – Jacek has posted the callout for the next mailbag in the chat, and it’s my favourite thing to write every week so sending in your submissions!
Keep squawking and keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah
People want Leo to be Jack Dawson in real life, and the more evidence that mounts that he is not that type of person, the more stubborn people get about wanting him to be that type of person.
OMG Sarah!!! Throw Mama from the Train!!! I don’t know why, but that movie was one of maybe 5 VHS tapes we had at my house for while before cable and I watched it so much when I was bored! I had totally forgotten about it.